26 Photographer Greg Constantine recalls his encounter with 15-year old Deni in Serbia – the oldest of seven siblings, all without proof of their birth or identity and consequently unable to confirm or receive documentation of their Serbian citizenship.202 This is a problem faced by many hundreds of children in Serbia203 and many more across Europe.204 It is particularly acute among Roma communities, such as Deni’s, but there are other groups which also face distinct obstacles in accessing birth registration. Hidden behind the myth of “complete” registration are the stories of different populations whose prospects of achieving the registration of their child can be considerably hampered by their circumstances, be they minority groups, irregular migrants, unmarried couples or the rural poor. This section illuminates some of those challenges. The right to be registered at birth is a fundamental right of every child, protected by – among others – article 7 of the CRC, where it sits alongside the right to acquire a nationality. In recent years, there has been a big global push by child rights organisations to achieve “Universal Birth Registration” (UBR).205 It is also expected that one of the new Sustainable Development Goals which will be adopted in September 2015 will contain a target relating to legal identity and birth registration for all.206 Europe has been a strong supporter of efforts to improve birth registration coverage. The EU, for instance, has provided financial and technical support for programmes to strengthen civil registration systems.207 Yet, with the occasional exception,208 the focus of European interest in UBR has been on improving access to birth registration outside Europe. The same is true of the major child rights actors: their UBR campaigning and programming has been directed towards other regions. COMPLETE VS UNIVERSAL BIRTH REGISTRATION? A look at UNICEF’s statistics on birth registration coverage provides an explanation as to why the focus of UBR work is on countries outside Europe. The total percentage of births registered is reported to be 100% in 39 of the 47 member states of the Council of Europe. Of the rest, there are two countries for which no data was available (Croatia and Romania) and four countries for which the birth registration rate is reported as 99% (Albania, Georgia, Montenegro and Serbia). Just two countries score relatively poorly against this European average – Azerbaijan and Turkey – both reporting registration rates of 94%. When set against the global average of 65%, it is indeed evident that far more work is needed elsewhere than in Europe to ensure that the right of all children to have their birth registered is realised.209 However, there is a critical difference between so-called registration “completeness” as statisticians would measure it and the achievement of Universal Birth Registration. As UNICEF has pointed out, the definitions of “completeness” used by the UN Statistics Division (UNSD) are inconsistent: “most UNSD handbooks equate complete and universal. UNSD defines the latter as 100 per cent. On the UNSD website, however, countries are shown with birth registration rates, or death registration rates, which are complete when more than 90 per cent of vital events are registered”.210 Thus, UNSD seems to consider all European birth registration systems to have reached “completeness”, even those at 94%. This is a term which suggests that no-one is left behind, but it is very much a statistical perspective on the issue and can obscure realities on the ground, as illustrated by Deni’s case presented above.211 UNICEF has therefore determined that, from the perspective of its mission to protect the rights of all children, “a safe choice is to use universal and define universal as all vital events, births, etc., that is 100 per cent”.212 BIRTH REGISTRATION IN THE CONTEXT OF THE SYRIA CONFLICT The war in Syria has prompted forced displacement on a massive scale. In Europe, Turkey hosts by far the most Syrian refugees: at least 1.5 million people, but perhaps as many as double that number.213 An issue which is now emerging in the midst of the massive humanitarian crisis is the challenge of birth registration for children born in exile to Syrian refugees – be it in Turkey or other countries of refuge. Research conducted by Refugees International in Turkey in March 2015 has shed light on the problems encountered there, as illustrated by the following story: “Doctor Nazir’s pregnant wife arrived in Turkey with a one-year old and no documentation. They had fled the unbearable bombardment of their home town, Aleppo, while Dr. Nazir remained in Syria to work in an underground field hospital. Dr Nazir had defected from the Syrian military in 2012, and was officially declared dead the same year. Because he no longer legally existed, Dr Nazir was unable to register his 2013 marriage or the birth of his first child in Aleppo. When his second baby was born in Turkey in 2015, shortly after his wife’s arrival, she could not file an application for the baby’s birth certificate because Dr Nazir remained in Syria and she had no legal proof of her marriage or her husband’s birth certificate”.214 Although no reliable data is available, it has been estimated that as many as 60,000 babies have been born to Syrian refugee parents in Turkey since the beginning of the crisis.215 A lack of the necessary documents, ignorance about the procedures, even fear of the possible ramifications of registration – all of these factors are hampering birth registration for these children. In situations of forced displacement, with fractured families and identification documents commonly lost or destroyed, the risk is high that problems of access to birth registration will prompt difficulties in securing recognition of nationality. The backdrop of discriminatory nationality laws in the country of origin (Syrian women are not entitled under the law to pass nationality to their children) serves to further heighten this risk. As Refugees International has pointed out, “concrete steps taken now by host governments to legally record a child’s birth and collect specific information about their father’s name, location of birth, and family members could facilitate the ability of Syrian children to claim their citizenship and repatriate to Syria when stability there is restored”.216